The beauty of simplicity

IT OCCURS TO ME that we’d be better off if typewriters hadn’t been replaced by computers. I mean, it’s thanks to computers that government departments are getting hacked. Airline computer systems are falling down dead. Banks, whose greatest responsibility is keeping your money safe, are putting you at risk because their defenses against hackers simply aren’t good enough.

What we need is fewer computers and more typewriters. I mention this because most of my readers are sailors, and you will appreciate that sailboats are the typewriters of modern transportation systems.

Sailboats, like typewriters, don’t need silicon chips and intricate circuits to  make them work. They don’t need gasoline or steam. They don’t even need electricity. You can circumnavigate the Earth under sail alone. It has been done many times. Some sailboats have auxiliary engines, to be sure, but you don’t actually need an engine to cross an ocean.

It’s a fallacy of modern thinking that computers are needed to run airlines. I can remember the days before computers, when airline offices (and all major businesses) had typists’ pools instead of keyboards and monitors. Typists had nice legs clad in silk stockings in those days, which made it a particular pleasure to take your notes into the typists’ pool to be typed up.

Those old airlines ran just fine without computers. They never came to a standstill because the stupid computers had broken down. And when you think of all the Allied bombers that made combined runs over Europe in World War II, hundreds and hundreds of them wing-tip to wing-tip, and all organized by typewriters and typists with pretty legs, you have to wonder about the alleged advantages of computers.

And just imagine if the Allied landings in France on D-Day had been scheduled on a computer whose hard-drive had crashed at D minus two hours, because one of Herr Hitler’s hackers had penetrated the firewall.

I like simple boats and simple systems. And there’s very little that’s simpler and purer than a nicely designed sailboat. All it needs is a rudder, a keel, a mast, a couple of sails, and some sort of shelter to sleep and cook in, and you’re in business. And if anything goes wrong, you can fix it yourself. That’s one of the most marvelous things about sailboats. Just like typewriters. You can spill a whole cup of coffee over a typewriter and it will still work. You can dig the gunk out of the keys with a paper clip and it will perform like new. The greatest technological challenge in keeping a typewriter working is changing the ribbon, just as the greatest challenge in a keeping a sailboat working is finding money for the marina fees.

Airlines and banks who really care about their customers, rather than their own bottom lines, would do well to study the simplicity, efficiency, and reliability of sailboats and typewriters. But that won’t happen, of course, because no matter what they say, money is more important to them than people.

Today’s Thought

Blissful are the simple, for they shall have much peace.

— Thomas à Kempis, De Imitatione Christi.

Tailpiece

A friend of mine is set to make a fortune. He’s working on a dog food that tastes like a mailman’s leg.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another Mainly about Boats column.)

Simple is as simple does

I SUPPOSE YOU CAN make a sailboat as complicated as you want, but in essence it is one of the simplest forms of transport. Sailors from hundreds of years ago would feel at home on the majority of today’s small yachts. The essentials haven’t changed: sails, masts, rudders, keels, and tillers. They all do the same jobs they’ve done for centuries.

So much of the rest of the world has changed dramatically in the last few hundred years. The old sailors who would feel at home on today’s simple sailboats would have had no concept of radio or television. Cars, trains, planes, computers and a host of modern inventions have come, and constantly changed, over the years. But simple sailboats go on and on, constant and unwavering.

One of my simplest sailboats was a sweet little Santana 22 fin keeler, one of Gary Mull’s first designs and rumored to have been designed on a paper napkin in the diningroom of a San Francisco yacht club. At least, that’s where they say he sketched out the basic lines.

She sailed like a witch, but as far as accommodation went, she was more like a floating fiberglass pup-tent. Nevertheless, June and I sailed her all over Puget Sound and deep into the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.

In Bedwell Harbour, on South Pender Island, we took Tagati around to the fuel dock on the northern side of the marina and bought 5 gallons of gas for the outboard. We asked for fresh water, too, but the attendant was reluctant to give us any. “We’re having a drought,” he explained.

“We only need 2 gallons,” I  said. “It’s all we have room for.” He nearly fell down laughing. “Help yourself!” he cried. “Go ahead.”

We headed over to little Portland Island, a beautiful marine park donated to British Columbia by Princess Margaret of Great Britain and anchored with a line to the shore. We were delighted to find a toilet ashore and we eagerly took every advantage of the luxury of a long-drop. On board, we used a bucket.

In the middle of the island, in a beautiful deserted clearing of dried grass, we came across an old hand pump that brought ice-cold water up from a well.  We returned to it the next day, armed with a bucket, shampoo, and towels, and washed our hair. It felt wonderful after a week without showers, but the ice-water was a little numbing.

Somehow, we managed to create a small lake of shampoo foam. Bits of white foam were swirling around in the wind, and we were standing there in its midst with towels piled up on our heads, when a small group of people, obviously from one of the smart yachts in the southern cove, came upon us. They didn’t say anything. They just stopped and stared, as if they had just stumbled upon a gypsy encampment.

After a few moments of wondering whether to acknowledge us or not, they moved on, murmuring among themselves, and June and I burst out laughing. We dried our hair, stamped out as many bubbles of foam as we could, and ambled back to our sweet little boat. There we lay back in the sun in the cockpit, smelling like our babies used to smell after their nightly baths, and thinking how lucky we were to find such contentment in such simplicity.

Today’s Thought

Often ornateness goes with greatness;

Oftener felicity comes of simplicity.

— William Watson, Art Maxims

Tailpiece

Did you hear about the sailor who nearly drowned in a bowl of muesli?  A strong currant pulled him in.  

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for another  Mainly about Boats column.)

The case for simplicity

I WAS LOOKING at a picture of Joshua Slocum’s famous Spray the other day and marveling at the simplicity of it all. My thoughts strayed to an article I once edited for a magazine. The author and his wife had sailed almost halfway around the world in a 42-foot ketch, and the purpose of the article was to tell other amateur sailors how they, too, could do it.
The bit that stopped me in my tracks was a sentence that said a laptop computer was “essential equipment” on the author’s boat (and most other voyaging boats) for communications, the Internet, and electronic charting.
Now, as one who advocates smallness and utter simplicity in cruising boats, I found that statement very disturbing. So a laptop is “essential” equipment, is it? Baloney. As far as I’m concerned, to cross an ocean you need a boat with a keel or a centerboard, a rudder, a pole from which to hang the sails, and a bucket to bail out the bilges. A little stove would be nice to make some hot coffee or a meal now and then, but you can eat cold canned food if you have to. I have.
Let me list a few essentials that the aforementioned author had on his boat, compared with what Captain Joshua Slocum had on his boat when he became the first man to sail singlehanded around the world.
Diesel engine (Slocum, no engine); radar (none); autopilot (none); wind vane (none); Dutchman sail-flaking system (none); watermaker (none); two alternators producing 150 amps (none); refrigerator (none); single-sideband radio (none); Pactor e-mail system (none); towed generator (none); battery monitor (none); 2,000-watt inverter (none); fuel polishing system (none); WiFi (none); laptop computer (none).
I myself am not a greatly experienced voyager, but I have twice crossed the Atlantic in boats of 33 feet and less that lacked the “essential” laptop computer, not to mention radar, autopilot, electronic charts, fridge, single-sideband radio, and a whole lot of other things from that author’s list. I didn’t even have an electric bilge pump.
The strange thing is, now that I know what’s essential, thanks to this experienced author, I suddenly feel deprived. It’s like not having taken advantage of hallucogenic drugs when I was still young enough to recover and save myself. It’s just too late for me to start on the essentials now. Besides, most of the boats I’ve owned had nowhere on board that would be dry enough for a laptop.
I am astonished that I managed to cross the Atlantic twice without all the goodies I really needed. To tell the truth, I’m really rather ashamed of myself. Such a bad example. My only consolation is that Captain Slocum was a bad example, too. And a few thousand others just like him.

Today’s Thought

Often ornateness goes with greatness;

Oftener felicity comes of simplicity.

— William Watson, Art Maxims

Tailpiece

California’s wine growers have listened to pleas from senior boatowners who have to make several trips to the head every night.

Vintners in the Napa Valley area, ordinarily producing Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Grigio wines, have now developed a new hybrid grape with anti-diuretic properties that will eliminate the need to visit the head during sleeping hours.

It will be marketed as Pinot More.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Farewell to simplicity

WE SAILORS are a strange lot. We love bright and shiny things, especially bright and shiny things with batteries (and digital cameras built in).

We trust stainless steel, fiberglass, and chrome. We mistrust rope and wood. We love electronics. We love fridges, microwaves, hot showers, ovens, and even electric heads that save us the effort of waggling the handle for a few moments. In short, we took one of the simplest forms of transport in the world and made it complicated.

Many of the fittings and systems aboard our boats are there purely for our creature comfort and have nothing to do with their suitability for sailing, especially long-distance cruising.

We don’t need mainsail flaking systems, full-length battens, and batten cars. We don’t need fancy, expensive air blocks that offer no great advantage, except to the manufacturer’s profits. We don’t need self-tailing winches if we’re prepared to luff up for a couple of moments, and there’s no need for many of the complicated chrome and stainless fittings we dote on, if there’s a piece of line handy. But we buy all these things anyway.

Either we are losing the ability to think simply or we have been brainwashed by the makers and vendors of shiny trinkets and digital doo-dahs. Or perhaps we have fallen in love with gadgets in order impress other people whom we’d like to admire us. Whatever the cause, it’s a pity, and it takes a brave person these days to buck the fashionable trend.

Today’s Thought

Fashion, leader of a chattering train,
Whom man, for his own hurt, permits to reign.
— Cowper, Conversation

Tailpiece

Happiness is that temporary feeling of pleasantness you have when you are so agreeably occupied that you forget how miserable you really are.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

On sailboats and typewriters

THE NEWS FROM THE INTERNET is depressing. Government departments are getting hacked. Airline computer systems are falling down dead. Banks, whose greatest responsibility is keeping your money safe, are putting you at risk because their defenses against hackers simply aren’t good enough.


What we need is fewer computers and more typewriters. I mention this because most of my readers are sailors, and you will appreciate that sailboats are the typewriters of modern transportation systems.


Sailboats, like typewriters, don’t need silicon chips and intricate circuits to make them work. They don’t need gasoline or steam. They don’t even need electricity. You can circumnavigate the Earth under sail alone. It has been done many times. Some sailboats have auxiliary engines, to be sure, but you don’t actually need an engine to cross an ocean.


It’s a fallacy of modern thinking that computers are needed to run airlines. I can remember the days before computers, when airline offices (and all major businesses) had typists’ pools instead of keyboards and monitors. Typists had nice legs clad in silk stockings in those days, which made it a particular pleasure to take your notes into the typists’ pool to be typed up.


Those old airlines ran just fine without computers. They never came to a standstill because the stupid computers had broken down. And when you think of all the Allied bombers that made combined runs over Europe in World War II, hundreds and hundreds of them wing-tip to wing-tip, and all organized by typewriters, you have to wonder about the alleged advantages of computers.


And just imagine if the Allied landings in France on D-Day had been scheduled on a computer whose hard-drive had crashed at D minus two hours, because one of Herr Hitler’s hackers had penetrated the firewall.


I like simple boats and simple systems. And there’s very little that’s simpler and purer than a nicely designed sailboat. All it needs is a rudder, a keel, a mast, a couple of sails, and some sort of shelter to sleep and cook in, and you’re in business. And if anything does wrong, you can fix it yourself. That’s one of the most marvelous things about sailboats. Just like typewriters. You can spill a whole cup of coffee over a typewriter and it will still work. You can dig the gunk out of the keys with the end of a paper clip and it will perform like new. The greatest technological challenge in keeping a typewriter working is changing the ribbon, just as the greatest challenge in a keeping a sailboat working is finding money for the marina fees.


Airlines and banks who really care about their customers, rather than their own bottom lines, would do well to study the simplicity, efficiency, and reliability of sailboats and typewriters. But that won’t happen, of course, because no matter what they say, money is more important to them than people.


Today’s Thought
Blissful are the simple, for they shall have much peace.
Thomas à Kempis, De Imitatione Christi.


Boaters’ Rules of Thumb, #211
If you want to improve ventilation of your boat, remember that a 4-inch ventilation cowl passes almost twice as much air as one with a diameter of 3 inches.


Tailpiece
A friend of mine thinks he’s going to make a fortune. He’s working on a dog food that tastes like a mailman’s leg.

(Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday — a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Sailing simply

(Drop by here Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

A COMMENT FROM Nikolay R., who sails a Tartan T30, in Toronto, Canada, says:

I realize this might not be entirely related to the topic ... as much related say, as a pig and a dodo.

But could you write a few entries on using such devices on board as oil-lamps, wind vanes, and foot-operated freshwater pumps? Things that let you be free of using electricity constantly. Tidbits perhaps on how to select the most appropriate ones, what to look for, and any sound advice on installation, usage, and maintenance.


Well, Nikolay, you are preaching to the choir. I have always favored simplicity in sailboats and I have always been parsimonious with electricity. In all my cruising experience, including crossing oceans, I have never felt the need for a wind generator or solar panels or (gawdelpus) a dedicated motor generator. That’s because I’ve never had a boat with a fridge or a fan-driven heater or a watermaker or a microwave or a computer or an anchor winch or pressure water or a macerator or any other of the myriad accessories that suck so many amps from the battery bank.

Every cruising boat I’ve owned has had two normal-sized batteries that were charged by the auxiliary diesel engine and its standard alternator alone. And during ocean crossings, that meant running the engine for about 30 to 45 minutes every second day. I rarely switched on the running lights at night, not only to save electricity but because we always had a person on watch in the cockpit at all times and we preferred to change course ourselves to keep out of the way of ships and fishing boats, even if we had the right of way.

I have no quibble with the vast majority of cruisers who prefer to equip their boats with all kinds of comforts that call for electricity, but I, personally, feel much more at ease without complicated accessories that I can’t repair myself.

It’s a matter of common sense to use things like a self-steering wind vane, an oil lamp, and a hand or foot pump for your fresh water. Especially if your object is passagemaking and efficient sailing, rather than using a yacht as a deluxe mobile condo, you do not need all the comforts of a land-based home. Yachting literature is replete with tales of adventurous circumnavigators whose boats lacked electricity entirely.

There is something elemental about sailboats that favors simplicity in place of fussiness. Many of the legendary yacht designers were known for advocating simplicity and its working partner, economy. William Garden, for example, said:

“In building a small yacht the absence of mechanical items can cut costs substantially, working on the premise that the first rule of economy is deletion and the second rule is substitution.

“Substitution often can be accomplished by using a more primitive wooden component — perhaps one cobbled together at home — rather than a more sophisticated part that carries profits for manufacturing and distribution with tax on top.”

Most modern sailors do not come easily to simplicity. Like jackdaws, they are mesmerized by the glitter. Only later, when they’re cruising on the wilderness of the ocean, do they realize the price they pay for that glitter. If they’re lucky, that’s when simplicity sets in. If they’re not, that’s when they give up cruising and start kicking the tires of those hulking great RVs loaded “with everything” and checking their GPS sets for Wal-Mart parking lots to camp in.

Today’s Thought
Often ornateness goes with greatness;
Oftener felicity comes of simplicity.
— William Watson, Art Maxims

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb #20
Choosing a boat. The basic rule of thumb for choosing a boat is that you must first decide what you want the boat for. If you aim is to entertain bikini girls on the sun deck while popping champagne corks alongside the yacht club jetty, you’ll be disappointed with a tubby, full-keeled, 32-foot sloop designed to be singlehanded across oceans. So choose a boat that honestly suits your needs and pleases you most of the time.

Tailpiece
I asked her what her lips were for,
While lying by the hedge.
She said she guessed they kept her mouth
From fraying at the edge.

Stuff I don't really need

MY 27-FOOT CRUISING sailboat was built in the early 1980s. Life was very simple in those days. The emphasis was on plain seaworthiness and ease of maintenance. But it’s very hard to keep things simple these days. The peer pressure to “upgrade” is strong and relentless. The boating bulletin boards are awash with posts explaining how to install three-stage “smart” regulators or patented dripless shaft seals.

Luckily, I am very resistant to work that doesn’t result in any observable benefit, and I hate change. So my boat has stayed nice and simple. I have learned to ignore the questioning looks of visitors who imagine this plainness to be the result of dire poverty. I know that 90 percent of the “improvements” people make to their boats do not make them easier to sail or cheaper to maintain. The very opposite, in fact.

Here’s a list of all the stuff I don’t have on my boat, in no particular order:

Full-length battens
Electric bilge pump
Boom brake
Non-drip propeller shaft seal
Barbecue
Loose-footed mainsail
Dutchman mainsail control
Mainsheet traveler adjustable under load
Self-tailing winches
Anchor winch (capstan)
Jib roller furler
Lazy-jacks
Folding (feathering) propeller
Extra-large (after-market) alternator
Digital voltmeter
Inverter
LED lights
Three-stage “smart” regulator
Masthead anchor light
SSB radio
Laptop computer
Epirb
Outboard motor for the dinghy
Mapping GPS
Cabin heater
Pressure water
Water heater
Fridge/freezer
Shower
Gimbaled cooker
Oven
Bimini
Halyards led to cockpit
Chart table
Entertainment center

I know people who have crossed oceans without any of the equipment listed above. I myself have cruised the wilderness Pacific Coast of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island for six weeks at a time without any of that equipment. This doesn’t make me a hero but it doesn’t make me irresponsible, either. Simplicity has many rewards. And it makes coming home to a hot shower and a cold beer so much nicer.

Today’s Thought
Blissful are the simple, for they shall have much peace.
—Thomas Ā Kempis, De Imitatione Christi

Tailpiece
“Why did your algebra teacher confiscate your rubber-band pistol?”
“She said it was a weapon of math disruption.”

Non-essential essentials

I HAVE JUST edited an article for a magazine, and I feel deprived. The author and his wife have sailed almost halfway around the world in a 42-foot ketch, and the purpose of the article was to tell other amateur sailors how they, too, can do it.

The bit that stopped me in my tracks was a sentence that said a laptop computer is “essential equipment” on the author’s boat and most other voyaging boats for communications, the Internet, and electronic charting.

Now, as one who advocates smallness and utter simplicity in cruising boats, I found that statement very disturbing. In the course of my editing, I could, of course, have cut that sentence out. I bet nobody would have missed it; even if they did I could have invented a good technical excuse. I’ve had a lot of practice at that. But as it happens I didn’t delete it, despite the great temptation. My ethical record remains unblemished.

So a laptop is “essential” equipment, is it? Baloney. As far as I’m concerned, to cross an ocean you need a boat with a deep keel or a centerboard, a rudder, a pole from which to hang the sails, and a bucket to bail out the bilges. A little stove would be nice to make some hot coffee or a meal now and then, but you can eat cold canned food if you have to. I have.

Let me list a few essentials that the aforementioned author has on his boat, compared with what Captain Joshua Slocum had on his boat when he became the first man to sail singlehanded around the world.

Diesel engine (Slocum, no engine); radar (none); autopilot (none); wind vane (none); Dutchman sail-flaking system (none); watermaker (none); two alternators producing 150 amps (none); refrigerator (none); single-sideband radio (none); Pactor e-mail system (none); towed generator (none); battery monitor (none); 2,000-watt inverter (none); fuel polishing system (none); WiFi (none); laptop computer (none).

I myself am not a greatly experienced voyager, but I have twice crossed the Atlantic in boats of 33 feet and under that lacked the “essential” laptop computer, not to mention radar, autopilot, electronic charts, fridge, single-sideband radio, and a whole lot of other things from that author’s list. I didn’t even have an electric bilge pump.

The strange thing is, now that I know what’s essential, thanks to this experienced author, I suddenly feel deprived. It’s like not having taken advantage of hallucogenic drugs when I was still young enough to recover and save myself. It’s just too late for me to start on the essentials now. And besides, most of the boats I sail don’t have anywhere on board that would be dry enough for a laptop.

I am astonished that I managed to cross the Atlantic twice without all the goodies I really needed. To tell the truth, I’m really rather ashamed of myself. I shall try to do better in future, honest. Pray for me, willya?

* * *

Today’s Thought

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand … Simplify, simplify. --H. D. Thoreau

* * *

Tailpiece

“That’s an unusual vase.”
“Yes — my husband’s ashes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. How long has he been gone?”
“He hasn’t gone. He’s just too lazy to find the ashtray.”

* * *